On and on…

The noise that comes with three young kids stuck in the house for five days straight can, at times, be overwhelming. There is playful chatter, high shrilled shrieks, fighting, singing, whining, and chanting. All of this happens while my husband has been spending most of the day at a desk (in the playroom) working from home. I add to the noise with my hushed whisper yelling, reminders to keep it down.

Tonight, I finally settled on the couch for a few minutes before initiating the bedtime routines. The girls were half watching a movie and browsing through books.

I zoned out. I stopped listening and paying attention to what was going on. Who knows where I went, but I was brought back to reality by what sounded like chanting. “On and on and on and on,” I heard Adi saying as Rose thrust a book at me. “Can you read me this one?” The noise felt like more than I could handle at the end of the day.

I was about to tell Adi to be quiet when I looked over and saw that she was reading a Fly Guy book. She was holding the book up and pointing to the words on the page. It looked like this:

She carefully pointed to each word, reading the page with accuracy and fluency. It went on long enough that I was able to capture a bit on video.

Instead of telling her to be quiet, I took a deep breath and praised her for her careful reading.

I am trying to embrace the chaos.